In a major blow to California employers who utilize a monthly commission scheme but pay biweekly or semimonthly salary to their commission sales employees, the California Supreme Court ruled earlier this week in Peabody v. Time Warner Cable, Inc. that a commission payment may be applied only to the pay period in which it is paid for the purposes of determining whether an employee is exempt from overtime. Employers may not divide the commission payment across multiple pay periods in order to satisfy the minimum compensation threshold for meeting the exemption in any earlier pay period. California employers who classify their commission sales employees as exempt should immediately take action to ensure compliance with the law.

The plaintiff in the case, Susan Peabody, worked approximately 45 hours per week as a commissioned salesperson for Time Warner Cable. Peabody received biweekly paychecks, which included her salary for the pay period, as well as commission wages on a monthly basis. After leaving her employment, she sued for a variety of wage and hour violations. Peabody alleged that Time Warner Cable had misclassified her as an exempt employee for which it was not required to pay overtime.

In order to meet the commission sales exemption under California law, among other things, an employee must earn more than one and one-half times the minimum wage. Peabody was paid less than one and one-half times the minimum wage in any pay period in which she did not also receive her commission payment; however, she was paid far in excess of one and one-half times the minimum wage on each pay period in which she also received her commission payment and her total monthly wages exceeded one and one-half times the minimum wage. Based on the fact that the commission payment was reflective of commissions earned over the course of a month, Time Warner Cable argued that it should be permitted to split the commission payment between the pay periods in the month for the purposes of determining Peabody’s exemption from overtime.

The California Supreme Court rejected this approach holding that commission wages paid in one biweekly pay period cannot be attributed to other pay periods for purposes of meeting the exemption. Rather, whether the minimum earnings prong of the commission sales exemption is satisfied depends on the amount of wages actually paid in a pay period. “An employer may not attribute wages paid in one pay period to a prior pay period to cure a shortfall.” This holding further differentiates that California commissioned sales exemption from the federal exemption, which permits employers to defer paying earned commissions so long as the employee is paid the minimum wage each pay period.

The Peabody ruling greatly impacts the manner in which companies structure their commission plans and payroll for commissioned employees. Because a commission payment may only be allocated to the period in which it is paid for purposes of meeting the exemption, employers should consider adopting biweekly or semimonthly payroll structures for both salary and commission payments or allocating a greater distribution of employee income to base salary as opposed to commissions in order to meet the minimum salary threshold each pay period.

The ruling also forebodes a new wave of misclassification suits for unpaid overtime in cases such as this where an employee may only meet the exemption part of the time. Of great concern will be the ability of employers to defend such suits where they have not kept good records of the hours worked by the employee, or their meal or rest breaks, due to the mistaken belief that they were exempt from overtime. Employers with large numbers of commissioned salespeople should consult employment counsel to perform misclassification auditing and assess the risks of class litigation.